


Pretty Cunning

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Father's Day, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick may be a suspicious bastard, but he's not an unforgiving one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Cunning

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly whimsy.

The parcel is ordinary – USPS, brown paper, the address is written with blue pen, the handwriting is blocky and not familiar.

It’s something soft. Slightly knobbly. Not food – no crackle of plastic wrapping, and too soft to be a book.

He scans the parcel because he's a suspicious bastard and he likes being alive in body, even if he is dead in name. He gets the parcel scanned in spite of the fact that only a handful of people know he’s alive, and none of those should know exactly where he is at any give time.

The scan says it looks...knitted?

When he gets the package open, he stares. Then he snorts.

It’s a hat. Looks hand-knitted. A woolly cap, in fact, in neon orange and sunshine yellow, with red ear-flaps, and a red-and-orange bobble on the top.

It looks, quite frankly, ridiculous.

A small blank card with a black moustache on the cover proclaims ‘Happy Father’s Day’ inside. It’s unsigned, although a typed slip of paper folded up inside the card reads, _A man walks down the street in this hat, people know he's not afraid of anything._

Nick doesn't need to guess who sent the parcel. There are only two people who'd dare this, and Romanoff isn't the gift-giving kind. He doesn't ask how she knew where to send it – he taught her well, and she's learned a few tricks besides. He doesn’t ask if she made it or bought it from someone who makes them – although the idea of her doing something as innocuous as knitting has a certain amusement factor to it.

It seems clear enough that this is a peace offering of sorts, after she chose Rogers’ course of action over his, walked away from the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D, and left him without his first choice of leader to manage the damage left by HYDRA. Of course, it’s also a questionably-made, garishly-coloured peace offering – one that makes him grin in spite of his annoyance with her.

It seems Hill occasionally feels the need to acknowledge what’s between them, inappropriate or not.

 _You do realise that girl would watch her biological father die without blinking, don’t you?_ Old Doc Fine growled at him when, during Hill’s absence collecting Romanoff and Rogers, Nick complained that Hill was behaving more like a mother hen than his second-in-command at S.H.I.E.L.D.

Yeah, Nick knows she would.

Doesn’t mean he’s not still angry.

But it’s a new world now: one for the young – or for those with the ability to keep ahead of the changes. Nick put his best into the old one and that didn’t work out so well. And maybe he hoped to hand his empire on to a worthy successor – which Coulson certainly is – but his first choice would’ve been Hill.

Too late for regrets.

Not too late to accept apologies. However garish and badly-made they are.

So he tosses the Father’s Day card into the incinerator pile for burning that night. But he folds up the typed slip and tucks it into his wallet.

Then he puts on the hat, lets the ear-flaps hang down by his jaw, and plans his next move.


End file.
